The Sorcerer's Destiny (The Sorcerer's Path) (46 page)

“I do not know if we can win, but I do know I will not.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean there is no winning scenario for me. Even if we defeat the fallen gods, events in my life and actions I have chosen have ensured that I will not enjoy our victory.”

“You are going to leave me just like Mordigar!”

“I will have to suffer the consequences of the things I have done. I wish the people I love did not have to suffer for them, but that is the price of letting love in your heart. For me, it is well worth the cost, and I hope it is for those who care about me as well.”

“Is that why you are not with Miranda right now?”

“It has much to do with that, yes.”

“You exact a high price for loving you, Azerick Giles, but I would pay ten times as much. Besides, you always said no one can predict the future, not even the fates.”

Azerick turned his eyes to the west and picked out a dark splotch just a bit larger than the others flying over the horizon. “No one indeed.”

CHAPTER 21

The smell of fear was palpable across the battlefield as the tens of thousands of humans stretching across the valley watched a sea of terror rushing toward them. Hands gripped shields and weapons so tightly they trembled even more than the ground being shaken by a million stomping
feet. Just two years ago, most the men and women standing to defend their kingdom and lives were farmers, merchants, bakers, and other simple laborers. Today, they were the greatest hope of staving off annihilation. Months and months of intense combat training had turned them from a multitude of professions into the largest, most well-trained army ever assembled, but few if any facing the horde barreling toward them thought they could possibly be enough.

The red-skinned ravagers looked like a tidal wave of blood washing onto the shore to mercilessly sweep everything away with its impossible mass and power. The surge struck the iron constructs first, parting like water around boulders jutting through a river’s surface. Several of the iron men fell to the overwhelming mass, but most held and began relentlessly hacking at the creatures as they flowed past.

The forward-most mages struck in concert with the rows of archers and siege weapons. Fire burst throughout the ravagers’ ranks as heavy stones and thousands of arrows fell like rain and hail. The horde did not balk in the slightest and continued to charge through the storm of death. Tens of thousands of ravagers struck the human shield wall with a deafening crash. Rank upon rank collapsed under the brutal assault as the defenders fell, were hacked down, and trampled. The humans shoved shield and spear into their enemy, and the wall began to hold. The ravagers’ momentum broken, the humans fought back with animalistic fury, stabbing, snarling, and spitting into the faces of their foes.

The tide of ravagers began to swell as those in the back surged forward, climbing over the tops of their brethren like a wave reaching the shallow waters of the coastline. The colossal press of bodies began pushing the human lines back once again, and there appeared no way to stop it.

“Dear gods preserve us,” Jarvin said as he looked out at the endless sea of attackers through a powerful spyglass mounted on a tripod.

Just as Jarvin and those able to witness the full scale of what they faced were certain of their imminent destruction, sections of the northern hillside exploded outward toward the valley. From out of the dust and rubble of a hundred new caves, twenty thousand dwarves charged down the hillside toward the ravagers’ flank with howls of fury every bit as savage as those of their enemy.

The ravagers had no trouble sending an army to deal with the new threat. More defenders meant more for them to slaughter. Without any audible or visual sign of communication, a massive section of the ravager army split off from the rear and center of their advance and charged to meet the new source of resistance.

As the bloodthirsty monsters barreled down upon the newest arrivals, the dwarves’ forward rank raised a hobnailed boot high and brought it crashing down with a single, uniform cry. The earth rune carved into the thick leather sole obeyed the dwarves’ command and released its pent-up energy. A massive swell of ground undulated away from the dwarves and rolled toward the charging ravagers. Spears of stone and crystal erupted from the ground to stab into their enemy, and deep fissures opened up to swallow them whole.

The ravagers, fearless even in the face of imminent death, charged on, leapt the deep crevices, and bounded across bridges created by their own bodies. The dwarves took another exaggerated step forward and triggered the rune carved into their other boot. That sigil extinguished, the foremost attackers stopped and let the second rank step forward. The new frontline raised a foot and brought it down with a thundering cry. A third earthen wave rolled out from beneath their boots then a fourth and a fifth until all ten ranks had spent their runic power.

The dwarves tightened their grip upon the hafts of their axes and hammers and screamed into the ravagers’ faces as if to blow them away with the power of their combined voices. The stout people looked about to be engulfed by the vast army racing toward them, but the subterranean warriors were not out of tricks just yet. Fierce cavern gnomes backed the dwarven army, and their earth callers raised their gems high. The long slope between them and the onrushing swarm turned liquid and buried the nearest attackers in a mile-long mudslide. The collapse left the dwarves and gnomes standing upon a fifteen-foot-high bulwark a mile long, creating a highly defendable position. The wall could not stop the ravager attack, but the earth callers were not finished with their foes just yet. Summoning the power of the elements, large globs mud began rising from the ground even as the ravagers threw themselves against the wall, climbed its face, and leapt high enough to strike at the defenders atop it.

Dozens of huge earth elementals broke through the surface of the mud and used their powerful fists to pummel the attackers or stab them with shards of stone growing from their tireless arms. The ravagers clawed at the elementals, stabbed at them with their short blades, and slowly chipped away at the constructs. The elementals were not indestructible, but the number of ravagers that would fall to them before they were destroyed was incalculable.

Huge war machines rolled out of the caverns, some pushed by teams of dwarves while others moved under the power of the runes etched in their frames. The wildest and most lethal-looking siege engine looked like an onager set on wheels ten feet high. Instead of a single arm and basket, there were five set like the spokes of a wheel and rotated around a central shaft. It towed a large cart full of spherically-carved stones behind it. Runes flared and the arms began to rotate, pausing just long enough for the ammunition to roll down the chute from the cart and settle into the basket before flinging the stone in a high arc onto the battlefield. The stones themselves carried a rune to violently explode when the rock struck the ground. The repeating catapult was able to fling twenty stones per minute with a good crew, and all the crews were exceptional.

“The dwarves are here!” Headmaster Florent cried gleefully as she used her magic to observe the battle by scrying out the chaotic scene in a marble basin.

As glad as he was for their allies, the dwarves’ arrival did little to relieve the pressure his people were under from the ravagers’ relentless attack. Their numbers were simply too vast. The army besieging the dwarves was largely the countless minions unable to reach the human lines, but it did free much of his reserves from having to guard the northern hillside so they could concentrate on the main battle raging on the valley floor. Jarvin had to amend his first impression when the dwarven war machines began flinging exploding stones deep into the ravagers’ ranks. The dwarves may not have mages, but their mixture of rune magic and conventional weaponry was nearly as devastating.

Finally seeing the dwarves and their infernal machines as a true threat, dozens of dragons broke off their relentless assault on the humans to deal with them. The dwarves did not have wizards to shield them from the dragons’ aerial attack, but they were not unprepared. Dozens of self-cocking ballistae mounted on a chassis to allow them to pivot at high angles launched rune-enhanced bolts at the terrifying beasts as they swooped down to unleash their fiery breath and powerful magic against the short people.

Soldiers hunkered beneath large rectangular shields built to withstand the intense fire and leapt into trenches and foxholes the earth callers dug with their magic. Teams of dwarves stood resilient in front of their precious machines and hoisted shields the size of shed roofs to protect them and their crews. Those close enough to the tunnels rolled back into the caves until the imminent danger passed before lurching back out to fling more stones and spears.

The ferocious battle appeared to be evening out, and Jarvin and his leaders felt a glimmer of hope that they could sustain the fight at least for a time. Although night fell and cast darkness across the kingdom, the two factions did not relent. The battlefield took on a new nightmarish aspect as the magic being unleashed across the valley threw the world into a chaotic strobe of flashing fire, lightning, and arcane explosions.

An eternity later, the sun began to edge over the colossal mountain peaks behind them, but instead of bringing with it the hope and warmth of a new day, it illuminated a horrifying image. A great swarm of dragons created a black cloud in the western sky. A hundred or more aerial reinforcements swooped in and rained death down upon the humans and dwarves.

Only the mages’ quick actions saved them from being routed and destroyed. The wizards shifted their focus to defense and raised powerful wards over much of the army. The dwarves retreated back into their caves and defended the entrances. With much of their offense crushed, the ravager horde began cutting deeper into the human ranks and pushed them farther back into the valley.

Azerick and Raijaun brought their unmatched power to the fore and struck at the dragons with as much of their magical strength as they could spare. Both knew they could not afford to expend themselves against the ravagers or the dragons. That was the duty of the soldiers and mages. Azerick and his son had to be at their peak strength in order to battle the Scions directly when the time came, but it was quickly becoming apparent that it may not be an option as the defenders continued to fall.

Sandy made a slow, circling pass high above the battlefield. Until now, she had remained at the periphery of the fighting, separating and engaging single targets as they distanced themselves from the skirmish to rest or hunt. It did not appear as though the dragons were able to tell she was not under the Scions’ control until she attacked them. If the fallen gods were aware of her meddling, they showed no interest in her. There were so many dragons now she doubted she could make much difference, but people were dying so fast she had to try. Her friends and family were down there and, if they were not already dead, she needed to try to save them.

She chose a thick knot of dragons assaulting the dwarves who had mostly retreated back into their tunnels, but at least a thousand of the stout, brave creatures were trapped outside and desperately trying to defend the long trench in which they were hiding. The dragons took turns strafing the channel with fire and magic as the dwarves hid beneath their shields and earthen overhangs. Several popped out from their cover to fire powerful crossbows at the attackers as they streaked past but were unable to inflict more than minor injuries on the colossal beasts.

Sandy waited until she was within a few hundred yards of the main group circling and waiting for their turn at the dwarves before striking at them with her rune magic. A powerful fireball erupted near the center of their group, destroying the wing of one dragon and singeing half a dozen others. Even as the crippled dragon made an uncontrolled spiral to the ground into the vengeful arms of the dwarves, she struck out at others with bolts of lightning and bursts of flaming breath.

The young dragon dived through the center of the chaos she created and streaked low over the ground toward the human frontline with half a score of furious drakes racing after her. Warding runes tingled across her scaled hide as they instinctively detected an impending attack. Sandy banked hard to her right at the last moment, using the power of her runes to blow her out of the path of the arcane onslaught. Lightning, searing rays, and blindingly brilliant orbs of destruction streaked past and unleashed their fury upon several ranks of ravagers. Swifter dragons used their higher positions to dive at her and spewed massive jets of liquid fire at her. Sandy juked back to her left but was unable to avoid all the attacks. Her warding runes flared and deflected most of the blast to send it splashing with the others into the enemy army below.

The heat of the near-miss blistered a large patch of skin beneath her scales, but she ignored the pain as she summoned a wind to lift her skyward while conjuring another to blast down upon the backs of the three dragons trying to roast her. The two dragons on the periphery of the gust were able to arrest their dive and bank away to avoid being pushed into the unyielding ground, but the creature at the center of the sudden downdraft was unable to compensate in time and plowed into the swarming ravagers, crushing scores of them beneath its tumbling mass.

Sandy raced into the sky and led her pursuers away from the battlefield. Other dragons spotted the threat she represented and joined the chase, eager to destroy the kin slayer. She could easily outfly the bulk of her pursuers thanks to her runes, but a handful of them were able to wield magic nearly as powerful as hers and stuck fast to her tail. Neither was it her intent to shake off the slower dragons.

Bright nimbuses of light flared as her wards blocked and deflected multiple attacks. She was able to avoid most of them completely, but not all, and those were quickly sapping her strength. Sandy sped almost straight up, leaving most of her pursuers far below until she arced over and raced downward at the slower-flying mob. Powerful elemental strikes preceded her as she dived through the tight mass of dragons.